All the ingredients were in place – unseasonably warm weather (72 degrees), 40-to-50 mile per hour winds, dry ground given the low winter snowfall. So it wasn’t a huge surprise to see a smoke plume 15 miles to the west at 10:30 on the morning of Feb. 26.
Nor was it time to embrace a sense of uncontrollable urgency, either, even as the wildfire surged to within 8 miles.
That’s because another set of ingredients were also in place – a Director of Agronomy, committed members of his staff, unique irrigation technology, unyielding passion that is in their DNA to protect the land. So it’s hardly a shock that when the raging wildfire reached the GrayBull Club in Maxwell – a town in the heralded Nebraska Sandhills – the picture had changed.
Yes, Mother Nature brought its fury. But guess what? Agronomists and superintendents bonded by a love of their turf refused to back down and ultimately won.
Now, should you tend to think golf is the PGA Tour where a parade of lads make the game look easy. Or you embrace golf for those days at your local club when you and your mates prove it is a difficult game, albeit thoroughly enthralling. No matter, you need to take this moment to shift gears. This is a golf story that focuses on the overlooked backbone to the game we all love.
A round of applause, if you will, for Michael Sheely, Director of Agronomy; for the husband-and-wife duo of Tyson Kramer (equipment manager) and Katie Kramer (assistant super); for Courtney Kohl (Integrated Pest Manager and crew member); for Ted Simmons (irrigation manager); and for Ben Boehm (who drove the water truck).
“When the fire was about 8 miles to the west of us, we kept getting conflicting reports,” said Sheely. “But by 12:30 p.m. our property was on fire.”
Panic was not included in Sheely’s course of actions. “I’m pretty calm naturally. I don’t show what’s inside, but, yeah, my adrenaline was flowing.”
Having been around his share of prescribed burnings (in a controlled setting, agronomists and superintendents burn grass every few years to revive the native land) “my instincts kicked in,” said Sheely.
GrayBull is the latest addition to the robust string of golf courses that have been built across an approximate stretch of 256 miles of sand in north-central Nebraska. Sand Hills in Mullen, designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, showed that if you build it beautifully they will come passionately. It opened in 1995 and others have arrived with much acclaim – Dismal River, The Prairie Club, CapRock Ranch.
Due to open later this year, GrayBull is a David McLay Kidd design that is the latest entry to the Dormie Network. While it is a magical landscape for golf, sand dunes and native grasses out in the Great Plains where the wind blows with might make wildfires a reality.
Thus did visionaries for Kidd and the Dormie Network put in a unique underground decoder-based irrigation system and Sheely was quick and prudent with the call. “We kicked all the water on.”
What unfolded was nothing short of textbook teamwork, from switching on the irrigation, to hopping onto tractors to build firebreaks, to manning the water trucks to douse the golf course structures. The fire burned around the course and right up to edges of the fairways, but never got any further.
“It was hectic and it was chaotic,” said Sheely. “But by 4 p.m. it was out and everybody (on staff) looked at each other and said, ‘Now, what do we do?’ ”
Typical of those who have the love of agronomy in their blood to always ask about the next work task and eschew the spotlight. But when he read about the GrayBull story, acclaimed designer Gil Hanse offered to sing the praises for Sheely and friends.
“I have always said that the golf course superintendents are the most under-appreciated workers in the golf industry,” said Hanse, who designed CapRock, which is 140 miles north of GrayBull. “Their ability to react quickly, creatively, and intuitively to issues in the turf world is under-reported.”
From Australia, where he is currently working, Hanse saluted the cohesive and well-thought-out measures of the GrayBull staff.
“To get something like this, where they have to think on their feet, not to defeat a pest or disease in the turf, but to save their golf course.
“I would expect nothing less from the superintendents that I know. Hard-working, dedicated, and conscientious are words that do not even adequately describe the passion they have for their craft.”
What shouldn’t be a surprise is that Sheely and colleagues did find more work after GrayBull was safely secured the evening of the 26th. They drove the water truck, which is filled from the lake on property, and joined the rest of the North Platte community to continue the firefight.
“Everybody out here helps everybody,” said Sheely, a native of Lincoln in the eastern side of Nebraska. “You just have to do what it takes.”
Sheely and his GrayBull staff will host a water-fill training for the Maxwell Volunteer Fire Department and a fundraiser has been initiated. All funds up to $100,000 will be matched by Dormie Network Foundation to add another fire truck and expand Maxwell’s facilities.
Time for a big sigh of relief. Well, yes and no.
This is the Nebraska Sandhills, where so much of the flat surface is wind sculptured. Grass-covered, stabilized sand dunes that is the sort of turf that Coore and Crenshaw, Hanse (CapRock, the 10-hole Horse Course at Prairie Club), Tom Doak (the Red Course at Dismal River), and McLay Kidd embrace.
But there are inherent concerns in the Sandhills, said Sheely, “and if we don’t get some rain, we’ll have our work cut out for us.”
That’s because “if we lose our native grasses, we lose our sand,” and that means the work for the agronomist and his staff will be compounded. Snow fences might have to be employed to keep sand in bunkers and measures will be to be taken to alleviate sand blown onto fairways.
In other words, Sheely and his staff did incredible work to help put out a fire. “But we’re not out of the woods yet,” he said, laughing softly because he appreciates the constant challenges he and fellow agronomists face.
So, too, does Hanse.
“It is a tough job, but the guys I know in the Sandhills come to work every day and enjoy the wonders that nature has provided them in that region. They remain committed to providing amazing playing conditions.”
